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Wednesday, May 17, 2017

Justice League #21 Review

End This Now!

Speaking of Endless...It's Justice League time once again and while I am a fan of Groundhog Day and Edge of Tomorrow (You know, Live Die Repeat), the first issue of this time jumping story left me wanting fifteen minutes back myself. I'm hoping this issue gives us a little more in the ways of rules and character development because I didn't quite understand the time travel parameters and really, had no investment at all in the villain, if he can even be called that. I guess the guy wants to kill the Flash and blow up anything else that gets in his way, so yea...villain it is. So, did this issue give me what I needed to finally enjoy an issue of Justice League? Let's find out...

The issue opens in Queens and our future villain, Jason, getting ready for his last second presentation. Actually, his wife calls him "Jake" here out of nowhere and that is the beginning of a bunch of problems I had with this issue.

Jason (Jake) says the presentation has been moved up a month and with what we know this is about, that seems crazy, but Jason (Jake) rolls with it and asks his wife to bring the kids along for a little top secret, government demonstration family time. Oh yea, Bryan Hitch makes it pretty obvious that things aren't great and Jason's (Jake's) wife has been up to some hanky panky with Jason's boss, Tony.

We then head off to see the Justice League fighting the nameless monster we've seen before until Flash realizes he's back in time again and grabs Batman to talk. Totally ignoring the rest of the League getting their asses kicked. Eventually, Flash mentions the team has it all taken care of, but it was just a ridiculous way to progress a scene. The dialogue is pretty bad here with my favorite being Flash explaining that every time he touches the device "I've been sort of hoping backwards in time...though it's more forwards for me". WTF????

Batman and Flash decide to head of to the demonstration to stop the madness while the League keeps fighting the big alien beast. Flash then gets angry at Batman for no real reason except to fill up panels and we revisit the scene with Jason and his family meeting up with Tony.

Batman, disguised as a security guard (after knocking out a couple of actual security guards...what the hell did they do to deserve that?!?), listens in and does hear the dirt between Jason and Tony and also that Jason has accepted a new position that seems to leave Tony high and dry. Okay, we have a motive for all the trouble, right? Well, not really.

After taking care of the alien, the Justice League stands around while Batman and Flash try to prevent the "extinction event" with Jason and the device. With the help of Cyborg, they go through the email of a "Lee Parker" and come to the conclusion that Tony is going to sell the device to China and kill everyone at the expo when it explodes. That's a lot to get from an email that said, "Package will be delivered today". Plus, who the fuck is Lee Parker?!?! Plus, the device is not linked to Flash at all.

The rest of the issue involves the League getting everyone to safety since the device is still rigged to blow and the alien they defeated earlier showing up to reclaim the device because it is actually his heart. I guess that disarmed everything Tony did to it?!? Then we are left with what I like to term the "Hitch Hanger"...there is a greater threat that is still coming that they all have to prepare for. Yea, I think I heard that somewhere before, possibly at the end of every story in the god awful run of Justice League!!!!

Okay, this issue is not good. We are left with a whole lot of questions...why did Flash touching the device send him back in time? How did Jason survive the explosion when it was all a setup to kill him and everyone near it so Tony could collect it and sell it. Plus, we never see how things were changed for the better...give us Barry and Jessica finishing their breakfast without being attacked just to give us some story closure. Why is Bryan Hitch allowed to continue writing this book? I changed my mind, this book is beyond "not good", it is awful!

As far as the art goes, Bryan Hitch does a good job. This is actually one of my favorite issues of art by him, but at this time I just want to end this.

Bits and Pieces:
This is just another confusing, convoluted Justice League issue and while you would think I'd be desensitized to that sort of thing by now, this is the JUSTICE LEAGUE! The art was okay, but the story is filled with non-answers and characters I could care less about. Yes, I am talking about the League as well and that is what kills me the most about this book right now.

2 comments:

Only if the new creative team could replace one Green Lantern with Martian Manhunter. I flat-out refuse to see Cyborg leave the team! I've read many angry comments circulating the web about how Cyborg is a token black character and he is the reason J'onn was removed as a founding member. This is not the case and they would've known if they read Stormwatch where J'onn makes clear he was a founding member until he decided to quit. We can have both Cyborg and Martian on the JL and everyone can be happy. Not a PC or fan rant just putting my opinion out there.

So far I've seen scarce negativity about Cyborg being on the team but the few who cry are most bigots. They can't accept that Vic has always been too mature for lame Teen Titans. At last Johns freed him from that pain and made him Justice League. Agreed we can have both on the team as long as they don't make Martian Manhunter a villain. His absence from rebirth start is troubling.

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